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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27905350">Blood in the Cut</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/EuphoniousGlow/pseuds/EuphoniousGlow'>EuphoniousGlow</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Pleasure of a Scar [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fallen London | Echo Bazaar</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Altered Mental States, BDSM, Biting, Blindfolds, Bloodplay, Body Horror, Bondage, Breathplay, Church Sex, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dream Sex, Dubious Consent, Exhibitionism, F/F, F/M, Family Member Death, Fearplay, Gore, Hunter/Prey - Freeform, Impact Play, Infidelity, Knifeplay, M/M, Mental Illness, Mindscrew, Objectification, Oral Sex, Orgasm Control, Other, Ownership, Possession, Prostitution, Public Humiliation, Religious Guilt, Rough Sex, Seeking Mr Eaten's Name (Fallen London), Self-Harm, Unaccountably Peckish (Fallen London), Voyeurism, Wax Play, Work In Progress, dreams of drowning, mild eye horror</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 18:14:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>18,811</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27905350</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/EuphoniousGlow/pseuds/EuphoniousGlow</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Ruminating Poet (Player Character) has begun dreaming of a voice, and she can't sleep for hunger. However, these hungers are of an urgent and particular nature. She seeks to satisfy her needs with the citizens of London, the dangerous and the strange, while her sanity falls further out of her grasp.</p><p>Updated 04 Apr 2021: Red as vengeance, red as the hunt.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Mr Eaten/Seeker of Mr Eaten's Name (Fallen London), Mr Fires/Seeker(s) of Mr Eaten's Name (Fallen London), Mr Iron/Player Character (Fallen London), Mr Veils/Mr Candles (Fallen London), Seeker of Mr Eaten's Name/Mr Veils (Fallen London), The Athletic Deviless/Player (Fallen London), The Bishop of St. Fiacre's/Player Character (Fallen London), The Cheery Man/Player (Fallen London), The King with a Hundred Hearts/The Manager of the Royal Bethlehem (Fallen London), The Manager of the Royal Bethlehem/Player (Fallen London), The Red-Handed Queen/Player (Fallen London), The Silk-Clad Expert/Player (Fallen London), original female character/orginal female character</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Pleasure of a Scar [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2070696</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Ace of Hungers</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Fallen London is © 2021 and ™ Failbetter Games Limited: www.fallenlondon.com.  This is an unofficial fan work. Portions of this work use text verbatim or nearly verbatim from Fallen London, and credit for those goes to the writers.</p><p>Hello, delicious readers. Thank you for reading my first story in the Fallen London universe. This story is a work in progress, an itch I feel compelled to scratch. Spoilers for Fallen London characters/storylines, especially Seeking Mr Eaten's Name and Ambition: Nemesis, will be numerous. There will be explorations of a variety of BDSM kinks from the submissive/masochist's perspective as the Seeker feels compelled to satisfy her hungers. There will be erotic entanglements with a variety of London's citizens, including Masters real and dreamed. There will be graphic descriptions of self-harm and self-destructive behavior outside of the realm of consensual BDSM activity. Listed tags will be included as chapters are added. </p><p>Or: The author heals and explores some personal issues and kinks with fanfic!</p><p>There is a playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmyrrAAHus4AbD3g3xeM8254pGgC8nbz5</p><p>Please enjoy yourself, and be well.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>O lost and wrecked, how long ago,</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Out of the drowned past, I know,</em>
  <br/>
  <em>You come to call me, come to claim</em>
  <br/>
  <em>My share of your delicious shame.</em>
</p><p><em>- </em>From "Stella Maris" by Arthur Symons</p><p>-</p><p>Something is missing in me. I have felt it ever since I lost my brother, my only family, some time ago. There is a yearning, a sense of emptiness that I have never been able to rid myself of.</p><p>Dreams linger like unwelcome guests as I sleep fitfully in my new flat. I stand upon a ship, eyes fixed on the dark horizon. I burn to reach it, but in waking I do not recall my destination. I remember whispers from below, rising on the salty zee air.</p><p>“North,” the voice says. It sounds as empty as I feel in this dark, sunless place, and yet I cannot think of a sweeter sound. I must find the source of the voice. The hold swallows me into its gaping darkness. Burning shapes rest behind my closed eyes like distant lights on a foggy night.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>I clutch the sweat-soaked sheets and shift uncomfortably. Sleep eludes me tonight. Heat throbs at my centre. For the third time of the night, my fingers press into my moist folds, and shudders of pleasure rush through me. I groan and bite my lip.</p><p>After a few strokes from my hand, I shudder and thrash from the clenches of orgasm. But it's not enough. The throbbing ache returns immediately, insistent, desperate. I need more than what my own hand can provide.</p><p>I hunger for it.</p><p>I hastily throw on the attire of the day before and twist my hair into a knot after rinsing my face and hands. I ignore the hansom driver's skeptical look as I hail him on the street.</p><p>Veilgarden is my destination. I will find something there.</p><p>Suddenly, I know where to go.</p><p>The hansom driver looks even more alarmed as we stop at my destination. I have never been inside the Parlour of Virtue. The Clay Men at the door look at me impassively.</p><p>“I hunger for pain,” I tell them. Wordlessly, they step aside. I clasp my hands together to keep them steady as I enter the building.</p><p>Inside, voices echo: shrieks of pain from all genders. Moans of ecstasy. Sharp cracks and thuds in the distance.</p><p>A man and woman await me in the foyer. A band of leather encircles the man's neck. He wears nothing else. The woman wears transparent black silk and red stockings with a black garter.</p><p>“What is your desire, my lady?” the man asks demurely, eyes down. I open my mouth to answer, but I struggle to find the words.</p><p>“Tell us your wish, pet,” the woman commands. Her green eyes glimmer, catlike, in the dim gaslight. As I look into them, the fire between my legs is stoked like kindling.</p><p>“Yes, Mistress,” I reply sheepishly. “I believe you can help me.”</p><p>“Place your payment into this box,” she says and gestures to a lacquered wooden box in the corner of the foyer. I drop all of the prisoner's honey I have into the box. It will be worth it to be rid of this need.</p><p>“Come,” the woman says. I follow her up the stairs and through the winding halls to a private room. Candles flicker in the corners and illuminate the implements lined up on racks on the walls.</p><p>First, there are forms to sign. Declarations that the Parlour and Mr Wines will not be held accountable for any damage that may occur.</p><p>After business concludes, my Mistress nods and closes the door. She gestures to the bed. She regards me, one hand on a finely curved hip.</p><p>“Have you done this before?” she asks. She traces her finger along my jaw, and I shiver. Her touch sends sparks across my skin. Her full red lips quirk into a smile.</p><p>“No, Mistress,” I admit. These particular appetites are new.</p><p>My eyes scan the tools that will be used to provide me with pain. I swallow and take a deep breath.</p><p>I steady myself and drop slowly to my knees, bowing my head. “I am honored to please you, Mistress,” I say. “I am ready.” I try to sound confident, even though my hands shake.</p><p>“Very good,” she murmurs and touches a hand to my shoulder. “Stand and strip for me.”</p><p>I don't take my eyes off of her as I shrug out of my clothes. My nipples are hard in the cool air and moisture gathers in my pussy. “Lie on the bed face-down with arms and legs spread,” my Mistress says. I do as I am told. My pulse quickens in my chest as I notice that ropes are attached to the four corners of the bed-frame. Her soft hands deftly tie my hands and feet. I am bound and immobile. I breathe softly, my head resting on one side.</p><p>“Listen carefully, pet.” She leans close to my ear. Her breath raises goosebumps along my neck. “If it becomes too much, say 'Wines.'” I want to chuckle at the use of the patron's name but nod my head.</p><p>“Good. Let us begin.”</p><p>I listen as she removes a tool from the wall that I cannot see. I gasp as I feel a curtain of soft leather tails against my back. They drag sensuously against my naked skin.</p><p>“This is called a flogger,” she murmurs. I feel the soft tails drift down to my exposed, sensitive sex. I clench my muscles and moan as I feel the leather brush along my thigh and ass. My Mistress chuckles gently and the sensation disappears.</p><p>Suddenly, I hear a swish and feel a thudding impact along my ass. I gasp and my hands fist in their restraints. Again, the flogger lands against my ass, on the other side. Each stroke brings more intensity. I groan and brace myself. Tension gathers at my centre, moist and all-consuming.</p><p>As it goes on, I find myself drifting, awash on waves of rhythmic pain. Her aim is true.</p><p>“You're with me, pet?” She demands a response.</p><p>I force myself to speak. “Yes.”</p><p>“Good. You're doing well for your first time.” She sends a particularly harsh strike onto my ass, and I cry out.</p><p>“Please, more!” I groan, feeling the fire burn hot inside me. I never needed anything more than I need this, right now. Each time the strikes slow down or become gentle, I beg for her to keep going, strike harder. I quiver and cry out until my voice is dragged hoarsely from my tired throat, and all I can do is whimper.</p><p>Eventually, the strikes slow and cease. My ass burns with pain. I feel her lips, softly, against the flesh of one tender cheek. I realize that the throbbing, insistent arousal is gone, replaced by a wet and satisfied relief. My eyes close from exhaustion and pleasure. One at a time, my hands and feet are unbound, and she rubs them gently.</p><p>“Move your arms and legs for me.” I do, carefully.</p><p>“Look at me,” she says, and I feel her touch my shoulder. I open my eyes. She examines me for a moment. I realize that she is frowning, perfectly arched brows drawn down.</p><p>She disappears for a moment and then returns. I feel a rag, damp with cool water, press onto my aching ass.</p><p>“Rest here,” she says, patting my face. “When you are ready, you may dress and leave.”</p><p>I hear her footsteps head toward the door then falter. “Be careful. Do not let your passions consume you.”</p><p>With those words of caution, she is gone. I don't know how long I linger between sleep and waking, trance-like.</p><p>The air stirs in the room. The candle flames flicker. A large shadow arises hazily before my half-closed eyes, silhouetted by candlelight.</p><p>“Beautiful, my dear. We are both satisfied.” A voice, a whisper, like something deep in the earth, settles into my ears. My skin prickles with chill. I close my eyes, deciding I must be drifting off. I feel something sharp and hard, like a claw, trace my jawline.</p><p>I open my eyes and get up onto my elbows, gasping and searching the room with my gaze.</p><p>Nothing is there. Nothing but the flicker of candle flames and shadows stretched along the wall.</p><p>I dress as quickly as my soreness allows and leave that place.</p><p>I sleep deeply and dream that I am immersed in marsh-water up to my knees. Flickering lights float on the thick, fog-choked air, and a voice echoes around me, inside me, until it is all that I am.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>The next day, I sit at my usual café, idly drinking tea and considering the subject matter of my upcoming short story, when it happens. I realize with a start that I am drawing on my napkin rather than writing letters. It is an unusual symbol, blacker than ink and seeming older than time.</p><p>I lift it closer to my eyes, tracing the curled strokes of the shape with my gaze. Suddenly, flame erupts from the drawing. I drop it, yelping, and the napkin smolders as it hits the floor.</p><p>I stare at my burned hand as a man yells and runs out of the café. I am marked. The skin blisters and smarts. I only come out of my shock when the waitress clutches my shoulder and insists on taking me to the kitchen to rinse my hand.</p><p>I watch the water drip from my blistered flesh, and something deep and hot burns in me. I exhale shakily.</p><p>What am I becoming? </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Two of Bats</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Content Warning: This chapter contains knifeplay and gore.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em>I would go under his knife</em> <em><br/>
</em> <em>&amp; move so willingly</em> <em><br/>
</em> <em>that his heart</em> <em><br/>
</em> <em>might turn to butter</em> <em><br/>
</em> <em>in his mouth.</em></p><p><em>- </em>From “Knives” by Erica Jong</p><p>-</p><p>Aisles of bookshelves stretch up around me, shadowed in the half-light like solemn mausoleums. I know which book I seek, but I cannot find it. My footsteps echo in the labyrinth of old paper. Dust tickles my throat.</p><p>I stop to catch my breath. It is then that I notice the title of the book nearest my eyes.</p><p>
  <em>NORTH.</em>
</p><p>I stumble back and search around me. I run into the next aisle, gasping and frantic.</p><p>Every book's title is the same: <em>NORTH.</em></p><p>“A reckoning,” a voice whispers from the shadows, “is not to be postponed indefinitely.” I turn and find only candles. My peripheral vision spies a shadow, a wing spread against the light.</p><p>“What do you want from me?” I ask, searching the darkness.</p><p>“Hate,” he hisses. “Memory. These are all that time has left to us.”</p><p>I remember my brother's blank, staring eyes, the wound gaping at his neck. Even now, I have not forgotten why I have come here.</p><p>“And hunger. It will burn in us until you find what I was, until you inscribe it on yourself.” The candle flames flicker in the cold, cold air. “I incorporated their pleasure and their hunger, as you incorporate me. And as I will incorporate you.”</p><p>I awake, shivering.</p><p>The jewel thief lies beside me, sleeping peacefully. He visited me tonight, held me tenderly as he showed me his latest prizes. He does not know what I have done, what I have sought because he cannot satisfy my hunger. He cannot give me pain, and for that, I have betrayed him.</p><p>I give myself a different kind of pain. In the darkness of night, guilt twists its knife into my gut.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>-</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>The Duchess invites me to a salon she is hosting. I go because I am desperate for distraction. She means for it to be a pleasant entertainment for the well-bred people of her acquaintance. I am of much humbler means, but she finds me amusing and useful. Also, I am kind to cats.</p><p>I mean to tell a story of my expedition in the Forgotten Quarter that led to the discovery of the Correspondence Stone. Society is quite interested in this topic. Instead, I find myself speaking of chains, a well, a knife blacker than night.</p><p>“A reckoning is not to be postponed indefinitely.” His words. I blink and come back to myself, rising out of my haze. I find I am staring at my scarred hand, recently healed but still bearing flame's mark. A few of the guests applaud me, to my surprise, but the Duchess's face is unreadable.</p><p>“Perhaps you should go lie down, dear,” she says, gesturing for me to leave.</p><p>Instead, I wander through the streets, mind full of questions. I do not want to go home. I am afraid what will happen if I do, if I sleep.</p><p>A courier finds me and presses a card into my hand. I look at it and feel my pulse quicken.</p><p>The card bears the seal of Mr Iron.</p><p><em>You are pursuing a name,</em> it reads. <em>End your pursuit now.</em></p><p>News must have spread quickly regarding my speech at the Duchess's salon. I nod to the courier and place the note in my pocket. I remember encountering Iron at the Carnival. It loomed over the crowd, silent in gray, terrifying even its own enforcers with a few words from its pen. All of the Masters are dangerous. I fear few of them; Iron is one.</p><p>I think about the warning for the remainder of the week. My hungers still plague me at night, but I cannot afford to pay for the Parlour's services every time I feel compelled, and the jewel thief visits me often. At night, I dream that I am mired in black water. Decayed shapes float half-buried in the muck, out of reach and enigmatic in the light of the will-o-wisps. The water holds me, thigh deep. I feel it squeezing me, pulling me deeper.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>-</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>Another note arrives, slipped under my door. This time it bears no seal.</p><p>
  <em>I know of your needs. Come to me, and you will be mine. Choose carefully. </em>
</p><p>I know from the handwriting that it is from Iron. I read the note again, my hands shaking, hardly able to reconcile with what this means. I have been to the Parlour, which belongs to Mr Wines. It does not appear my activities have been kept in confidence.</p><p>If I go, I will be Iron's. I cannot decide if it is a threat or a promise. I realize with horror that arousal strains under my skin. The note excites me. I take a deep breath. Whatever this Master plans for me, I yearn for it. I will go. On a night when I know my jewel thief will be preoccupied, I go to the Bazaar.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>-</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>Neddy men meet me outside the Bazaar and accompany me up the lift inside. I had dressed and groomed myself to be a worthy prize. This is likely a terrible mistake. My stomach lurches uncomfortably.</p><p>They take me to a vast series of rooms within a spire. The gas lamps shed their dim light in the shadows of the first, cavernous room. Mr Iron steps into view and stands before me.</p><p>I bow my head, pulse fluttering wildly. “I am here at your request,” I say.</p><p>Before I know what is happening, Iron presses close and twists long fingers into my hair, tilting my head up. Silver light regards me from within the darkness of its cowl, and I glimpse outlines of an inhuman face. It doesn't matter. Iron's rough touch sends shivers of pleasure through me.</p><p>It lets me go and points to my clothes; I understand its meaning. I drop my clothes to the floor until I am naked under its gaze. It nods and moves behind me. A cool band of steel slides around my neck. I feel it lock at the back. I think of the jewel thief and his promises of sliding a ring of gold around my finger one day. A heavy chain falls from the O-ring at the front of the collar to the Master's hand. I have no choice but to follow as it leads me deeper into the room. The neddy men depart but for a guard at the front of the chamber.</p><p>We walk into a smaller room. In the centre stands a wooden cross of Saint Andrew, half-lit with the glow of candles set in holders on the walls. A sofa lay beyond the cross, with a pitcher of water next to it on a small table.</p><p>Iron leads me to the cross. It looks back at me, and I have the feeling of being scrutinized. I try not to let my fear show on my face. It grasps my shoulders and turns me until I back up against the cross. It towers over me, chaining my neck, arms and legs to the massive “X.”</p><p>It procures a pen from the folds of its robe. Quickly, it scrawls a note that it holds out for me.</p><p><em>I long for the feel of flesh beneath the blade. </em>My eyes widen, my breath quickens. Maybe I will die by Iron's hand. Another movement of the pen. I read what it has added. <em>I do not destroy that which I covet. </em>I try to let that reassure me.</p><p>It draws a knife that glimmers in the light like diamonds. A long, curved steel blade ends in a carved ivory and gold hilt. It is a beautiful and deadly thing from a distant land.</p><p>A hand engulfs my neck, traces the line where skin and collar meet with a long, clawed finger. I try to be very still. I watch Iron, but the silent shadows of its hooded face reveal nothing but occasional glimpses of silver light. The knife is sharp as it touches the skin of my arm. I feel it cut the top layer of skin, parting flesh as easily as slicing butter. I gasp from its cold bite.</p><p>“Dear deep void those knives,” a voice whispers. “My flesh was not meant for them.”</p><p>I look at Iron, but it holds the blade to my thigh as if it has not heard, and I gasp at its cruel caress. Red drops of blood well at the slice like rubies. I feel heat between my thighs. Iron is careful, precise. It avoids those places that could kill. The blade moves with control over my body, leaving stinging kisses. Sometimes, it teases with the flat of the blade. My skin awakens with anticipation, and flutters of pleasure pulse in my throat.</p><p>I close my eyes and delight in the ice of the blade as its flat side is drawn against my nipple. I find myself moaning. The blade's tip bites into my breast. I cry out, writhing against my restraints.</p><p>Iron's long fingers close around my throat. I open my eyes, and it leans over me. I hear its breath, heavy with what must be excitement. It moves closer and pulls the knife away. I understand its warning: I am not to move.</p><p>“I'm sorry,” I gasp, and its claws leave my throat.</p><p>Again, it points the tip of the knife into my breast. I close my eyes and will myself to be still. When the blade presses its stinging kiss to the most tender flesh between my legs, I am gone, heat flaring inside my core, using all my willpower to remain still as I orgasm.</p><p>I slump against my bonds as Iron withdraws the blade. It unchains me, holds me upright as it guides me to the sofa. It pours a glass of water and presses it into my hands, then leaves me as I drink.</p><p>As I lie there, it returns with ointment and cloth. It dabs at the knife wounds with gentleness that surprises me. There is both bloodlust and protectiveness within this creature.</p><p>“Thank you,” I whisper, touching its long-fingered hand. It looks at me for some time, then draws its hood down. This, perhaps, is my greatest surprise of the evening. I examine its chiropteran features, the thick black fur tipped here and there with gray, the long scar that renders one eye blind and crosses its snout. One ear's tip is missing. I find myself reaching for its face, but it grasps my wrist and shakes its head.</p><p>It leaves the room, and I drift off, exhausted.</p><p>My dreams are not gentle. Knives of black glass peel my skin until I am flensed and bleeding. I cry out with pain and ecstasy. He watches me, eyes hollow and lightless as an extinguished candle: not Iron but a crouched thing in ruined, damp rags. “You let him claim you,” he hisses. He turns from me, and then I find myself on a boat floating down a lonely river.</p><p>When I finally wake, a scar bleeds red over my heart. A card in Mr Iron's handwriting lies on the table. <em>He took you while you slept. You raved of the Name, and you were dead, his mark upon you. Disappointed. Leave and do not return. </em>Iron and its collar are gone. I realize a dozen neddy men stand there, staring at me. Before their watchful, smirking faces, I dress, and they escort me out of the Bazaar.</p><p>I go out into a night that is colder than knives.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Three of Roses</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Content Warning: Mild gore and self-harm.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>but the animal in me<br/>
only recognizes the kind of love</em>
</p><p>
  <em>that is happiest with blood<br/>
in its teeth —</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The hunter, giving<br/>
a name to the space<br/>
between the deer’s eyes.</em>
</p><p><em>- </em>From “Extinction” by Shannon Hozinec</p><p>-</p><p>I could excuse the bruises from my visit to the Parlour by crafting a tale of a nasty tumble, the painfulness and lack of intimacy explained by a slip on the cobblestones. My jewel thief knows of secret fighting rings where men circle me like adders, ready to plunge their blades into an unguarded patch of flesh. This is not the first time he's tended to my wounds. The gash on my chest bleeds through bandages.</p><p>“Something is wrong,” he says, eyes clear of honey haze as they look right into mine. “It's like your mind is always somewhere else. Like you don't even see me.” He wonders why I am tired, why I groan and twitch in bed. The voice haunts me every night, calling me to the North, yet I always wake feeling alone.</p><p>The jewel thief tries taking me out into the city for a distraction. My laughter dies, whimpering, as guilt burrows into my throat. With excuses that I am ill, I take my leave of him and return home.</p><p>I stumble into my flat, strangling a sob. My jewel thief's worried expression lingers in my mind.</p><p>“Secrets make the cruelest cuts.” The shadow hunches in front of the window across from me. “Drink them down, and they will die.”</p><p>I throw open the cabinet that contains my collection of wine, but when I turn back toward the figure, an empty room is all I see. I have always been best at drinking alone anyway.</p><p>I fill my glass with deep red. I confess my sins with black ink. My stomach growls, the fire between my legs burns.</p><p>“Please, take this away,” I whisper. Before I even know what I am doing, I shove the ball of paper into my mouth and take a large gulp of wine. I nearly retch as the liquid washes down my secret.</p><p>Again and again, I drink. I have so many transgressions and indiscretions to forget. My mind clouds, and the room tilts sideways. Candelight dances in my vision. My face grows hot, and the words blur as I write them. Paper erupts into flame, and I fall into the inky dark night.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>-</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>Something harder fills my glass when I feel ready to drink again without retching. It is a rainy night when I slide into a stool at the bar of the Medusa's Head. The bartender lifts his gaze to meet mine as I sit. There is no mistaking the broad shoulders and cunning brown eyes of the Cheery Man, dressed in shirtsleeves and simple trousers that belie the importance of his position. My eyes linger on his strong, scarred hands and the muscles filling his sleeves.</p><p>“About time you dropped in again, Nell,” he growls.</p><p>“I had a thirst for this horse piss,” I reply, raising my glass. “And your charming hospitality, of course.” Many wouldn't dare to speak to him this way. He was the first person to make me feel welcome in the Neath, and I'd earned his trust. His methods aren't pretty, but he keeps his word. I respect him for that.</p><p>He rewards me with a grin. “My own eyes've watched ya make Clay bastards beg 'Uncle'.” He snorts. “Likes of you don't need hospitality.”</p><p>The whisky burns down my throat, pleasantly vicious.</p><p>When I glance up at the Cheery Man again, he looks at me for a long time, the smile slipping from his face. “You all right? You look rough.” My eyes are ringed with deep shadows. He leans closer, elbows on the bar. I know better than to ever lie to him. </p><p>“Everything is complicated right now,” I admit. “I'm out of sorts.” I stare into the brown liquid in my glass. Despite making myself sick with wine on the night I tried to drown my secrets, enough of them still cling to me. The jewel thief's face appears in my idle mind.</p><p>“It's all right,” I say, shrugging. “It's nothing to worry over.” I glance sheepishly at the Cheery Man. He has more sins to his name than I can fathom, and family complications that will forever haunt him. I have been there for him through many of his most difficult situations, and for that we have become friends, of a sort. I have been to see his wife's grave, watched his grief over his daughter's stiff, venom-wracked body. I am trying to avenge my brother's death; the Cheery Man bested his own daughter in a deadly game, one that he did not wish to win.</p><p>“What you need,” he barks, gesturing his knife at me, “is to get your mind off of whatever this is.”</p><p>I smirk, meeting his eyes. “That might do a lady good,” I agree.</p><p>He snatches the unfinished glass from my hands then gestures at someone behind me. The Blind Bruiser appears at his side before I can blink.</p><p>“Take over,” the Cheery Man tells him. “I'm entertaining our lady here.” He puts a hand on my shoulder. “You're done drinking. Come on.” He lets me behind the bar and holds open a door that disappears up a flight of stairs. From previous visits, I know the route to his upper floor meeting room.</p><p>I slow my pace as he makes his way with his cane to the room with the ebon-fungus chair. It would be a mistake to consider him weak. Even with his leg rendered semi-paralyzed from Cantigaster venom, he is a deadly man. I blush as I remember how the wine had emboldened me during my last visit to this room, when I had propositioned him. He had grinned widely and made vague promises for another time.</p><p>“In here.” He gestures through another door, one I have never entered. I go in first and then stop once I pass through the threshold. A large bed with mahogany frame greets me in what appears to be the Cheery Man's bedroom. I feel his chest press my back as he moves close behind me, his hand on my forearm and the warmth of his body.</p><p>“This is what you wanted, aye?” His deep voice rumbles in my ear. “When you asked to stay the night.”</p><p>I exhale and attempt to turn toward him, more out of surprise than desperation. His hand finds my throat and holds me still.</p><p>“Let's make one thing clear, Nell,” he growls into my ear. I feel an ache stir deep inside me at his use of my name. His voice makes my face redden. “We play by <em>my</em> rules. Understand?”</p><p>“Yes,” I whisper. His grip tightens, and I feel my pulse thudding under his hand.</p><p>“Yes, what?”</p><p>“Yes, Sir,” I gasp as I feel him squeeze my throat.</p><p>He releases me. “Right. Don't forget it.” He turns me to face him, and there is a greedy hunger in his eyes. He leans his cane against the wall, and his hands rid me of my clothes, until I am uncovered before his eyes. His gaze travels from my face, to my breasts, to my aching center.</p><p>“Bloody great tits,” he says. He touches them lightly at first, then squeezes my nipples. I can't help the moan that escapes my lips. His eyes darken as he pinches a nipple hard, and I gasp.</p><p>“Who does your body belong to, girl?” he asks. He gropes my ass as he asks the question. I clutch at his chest, and he pulls me closer.</p><p>“You, Sir,” I say. I want nothing more at this moment than to be his.</p><p>“I want to show you somethin'.” He opens a drawer in the bedside table and pulls out a foot-long wooden paddle. Two large holes are cut in the smooth, red oak surface.</p><p>“Made this meself,” he says proudly, running his finger along its edge. “I'm itching to mark your pretty ass with it.”</p><p>“That sounds like fun,” I say. He grins, and I see a glint of gold in his smile.</p><p>“We'll see if you think so when I'm done with ya. Bend over the bed.” I do as I'm told. Revealing myself so intimately makes me wet in anticipation. His hand presses firmly on my back.</p><p>Suddenly, his other palm strikes my ass, sending a crack of delicious pain through me. He squeezes the stinging flesh.</p><p>“You like this,” he says. I moan as I feel his thick fingers slip inside me. He moves them slowly, just enough to coat himself in my juices. He chuckles. “You're dripping. Greedy little girl. Want more, eh?”</p><p>“Yes, Sir,” I groan as he teases me.</p><p>This time, I feel the paddle on my ass. It stings, so much harder than his hand. He does it rhythmically, alternating with fingers inside me as I'm nearing my peak. I start to cry out as the pain reaches searing heights. Juices flow down my legs. He thrusts his fingers harder and faster inside me. I feel the pressure building, yearning for release.</p><p>And then, he stops. The absence makes me buck my hips, moaning at the lack of being filled.</p><p>He pulls himself onto the bed with some effort and leans back against the headboard, then stretches his legs wide, still fully clothed. “Come here, girl,” he commands.</p><p>I lean my body back against his, my ass settled against his pelvis. His hand slips around my throat again, the light pressure a warning. His other hand caresses my neck, my breasts, my stomach.</p><p>“You're not allowed to come unless I let you,” he tells me, breath hot on my ear. The hairs raise on the back of my neck. </p><p>My flesh yields under his hands. His thumb swirls my clitoris, and I gasp at the heat that fills me. I writhe under him, pinned in his grasp. He fucks me with his fingers, but he always stops before I reach my peak.</p><p>I gasp, my breath heavy, bucking my hips as he takes pressure off my clit right before I break.</p><p>I feel his laughter, low and deep in his chest. “I won't let you 'til it pleases me,” he says.</p><p>“Please, Sir,” I say. “I want to come.”</p><p>His fingers squeeze my throat, pressing me into his chest. “Not yet,” he growls. <em>“If </em>I let you. That's the game.” He takes his hand away. “Lie on your stomach and close your eyes.”</p><p>I do so. I hear the drawer of the bedside table open again, the sounds of rustling cloth and metal. The bed creaks. His hands spread my legs wide, and he slides a pillow under my stomach so my ass is thrust into the air.</p><p>A hard, bulging shape pushes into me. The unmistakable smoothness of glass in the shape of a phallus. It thrusts inside me, stretching me wide. I feel his arms pinning me down, his chest pressed against my back. His legs push mine wider as he fucks me, his weight mostly leaning on his good leg and his arms. One strong arm wraps around my chest and holds me against him.</p><p>He spanks my ass as he fucks me deeper, grips my hips with bruising strength as he pulls me to him.</p><p>“Please let me come,” I whimper into the bed. “It feels so good.”</p><p>“I'm not done with you.” He slows his pace, making my pussy ache for him, then withdraws.</p><p>“Get up here.” I crawl onto my knees and turn around. He's lying flat on his back. A harness with a glass phallus is fastened on top of his trousers. He gestures toward his face. As I approach, he grabs my hips and moves me into place over his mouth. His tongue, wet and hot and delightfully rough, parts my folds and explores until it finds my clitoris.</p><p>I cry out and grip the headboard as he flicks my clitoris with his tongue. I'm seeing stars, planets are birthed and die in the bursts of pleasure and heat that ride through me. But still, he does not allow me to come. He sucks me, lightly gripping me in his teeth. I try to move away as the sensations become too strong to take, but his strong hands hold me still. I'm trapped there for what feels like an eternity.</p><p>All I can do is close my eyes. Words tumble from my mouth, prayers, begging him to let me come.</p><p>I am close so many times, only for him to ease off enough that I do not have release.</p><p>Finally, he pulls me away from his mouth. With some difficulty, he pins me on my back and holds me there with his eyes as he stands at the edge of the bed. He pulls my hips to him and sheathes the glass phallus inside me. His hands lift my hips up so my feet are over his shoulders.</p><p>“You're so bloody delicious,” he groans. Each thrust buries the phallus to its hilt inside me. I grip the bedsheets and forget to breathe, as my eyes close with pleasure.</p><p>“Look at me,” he orders. I hold his gaze in my own. My vision swims. His face takes on a leathery, furry paleness. Great wings sprout from his shoulder blades. Claws cut sweetly into my flesh as they lift my hips. Empty eyes pin me down. The claws grip my hips tighter, clenching me around something huge and ribbed that spasms hotly inside me, and I forget my name.</p><p>“Come!” I do not know whose voice orders me, but I obey.</p><p>The Cheery Man thrusts hard as I continue to spasm, squirting and soaking the bed beneath me, until I am completely spent. I blink my heavy eyelids, and his face clears in my vision. No monstrous creature but a man. My skin shines with sweat.</p><p>He looks at me fondly and strokes my hair. “Good girl,” he tells me. “You make an old dog feel young again.” He traces the bleeding red scratches on my hips with his hand. “Didn't know I was rough 'nough to make ya bleed. For that I apologize.” He chuckles. “Leaves ya a little reminder of tonight, eh?”</p><p>I look at the scratches and know I will not forget.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>-</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>I long to feel those claws again in the following days. When I see the blood-ivy during a visit to the Shuttered Palace, forbidden shapes in its twining vines, my heart pounds. The thorns make my mouth water.</p><p>Before the gardeners can stop me, I embrace the ivy, my arms wide and inviting. The thorns bury themselves deliciously in my skin. The plant drinks my pulsing blood and I feel myself come, aching with need of it, until my vision goes black.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Four of Eyes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Content Warning: This chapter contains dubious consent, public humiliation, and mild eye horror. What else do you expect from Mr Fires?</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em>You inhabit yourself but do not recognize yourself: you live in an abandoned vault in which you listen to your heart</em> <em><br/><br/></em> <em>while grease and oblivion spread through all your veins and</em> <em><br/><br/></em> <em>you calcify amid the pain and from your mouth</em><br/><br/><em>fall black syllables.</em></p><p>- By Antonio Gamoneda</p><p>-</p><p>When I wake, I am in my lodgings, and the jewel thief changes my bandages. His eyes widen with relief as I stir, but his expression hardens.</p><p>“Nell, I don't know what would possess you to do what you did! The doctor told me what happened.” He grabs my shoulders, his face close, and I wince. His words stir something inside me, a recognition that I have been increasingly consumed by a will that does not seem to be my own. I am pulled inexorably toward that which will destroy me. “What is wrong with you?”</p><p>He shakes his head, running fingers through his unkempt hair. “I know what else you've been doing. Breaks my fucking heart. People saw you go upstairs with the Cheery Man. Said you came down, clothes a-skew and hair undone. You take me for a bloody fool!” His hands tense into fists, but he sighs and deflates. “This started out as something fun, and you wanted to make it more.” He looks me in the eyes. “I was a fool, thinking this could work.” Pain makes his voice crack. It digs deeper into me than the sharpest thorns ever could. “I never really knew you at all.” He stands up, gathers his hat and coat. “I'll make sure one of your friends comes to tend to you, but I never want to see you again.”</p><p>I watch him go and make no attempts to stop him. I know that I deserve this. Can I really blame these compulsions for my sinful choices? It's over. The lying, sneaking around to fulfill these unceasing desires, the broken promises: they are all over.</p><p>I am not welcome at the palace. The invitations to social events slow and cease as word spreads of my self-impalement, my growing madness. I write letters, pen scrawling feverishly and splattering ink.</p><p>“<em>What is forgotten? Will you tell me? I must know!” </em>I write to my bohemian friends, the devils of my acquaintance, the Cheery Man and his gang. No one answers. After the Honey-Addled Detective ensures I have recovered enough to move around my lodgings, I receive no more guests. I am alone.</p><p>“It will burn in you until you find my Name, until you ask the Question.” His voice rings in my thoughts and in my dreams. I dream of the jewel thief and hear the hollow voice more clearly than ever. “Propagate your eaten faith like seeds and leeches. Its greedy light will bloom. Now you have the tinder.” The jewel thief's face flickers like a candle flame.</p><p>His face snuffs out, and I am standing on a clifftop, wind and rain tearing at my face and clothes. I shield my eyes with my hands and walk to the edge. A group of robed figures mingles below. I recognize one of the faces: my brother. He is tall, his handsome face a beacon in the storm.</p><p>“Nell!” he shouts to me. He is smiling, waving to me. As he waves, I watch a red gash open in his throat. His skin grows pale. His mouth is still stretched in a smile.</p><p>“North,” he says, pointing to the stormy, black sea in the distance. “It's in the North.” He collapses, eyes wide and sightless, like the day I found him. “It's in the North,” he whispers, and goes still.</p><p>My eyes open to the ceiling above my bed, and for a moment my brother stares down at me. I clutch at the sheets, breathing heavily.</p><p>“Hush now,” a smooth voice utters beside me. “He can only hurt you if you let him.” I twist my head to the side and see a man lounging in the chair at my bedside. Fear holds me in place, but I find my tension releasing at his words. He holds up his hands, and I count two missing fingers. My heartbeat slows, and my hands unclench. I stop holding my breath and watch the way candlelight dances in the brass buttons on his coat.</p><p>“Who are you?” I ask, my throat dry. The man tips his hat at me. “Why are you here?”</p><p>“I am the Manager of the Royal Bethlehem,” he says, as if that explains everything. "How do you dream? Not well, I think, for you. Well for me, perhaps."</p><p>“I'm Helena Blackmore.”</p><p>“I know.” He grins. White teeth shine brightly in his brown face. He silences my unasked questions with a raised finger. “Such delectable dreams you have been having.” There is something strange and wild in his dark eyes. He pats the blanket over my leg. “I think we shall see much more of each other.” He sniffs, grimacing. “Though perhaps do something about that stench. Betrayal. It is unbecoming, the way it clings to you.”</p><p>I open my mouth to protest, but he is gone.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>I sleep in a cold, empty bed while my mind walks in dreams. I dream that I hold a black candle, its dim light guiding me through a dark room. I can't see, so I raise the candle. A book catches fire, and pages blaze around me. I can't let all this knowledge burn to ash! I grasp a smoldering page. The ink glows apocyan.</p><p>When I wake, I blink, and an image of the page nestles like a shadow onto the nearest paper.</p><p>I chase apocyanic light through my dreams and create a book of these memories. I dream of a strange city, sunlight enriching my skin like honey. People here don't look at me like I am an abomination. Their eyes do not fill with disgust or sneering amusement when they pass by.</p><p>I find myself entering a familiar church, its interior lit by hundreds of candles that make shapes writhe on the floor and walls. Apocyan dances in a brazier by the altar. The light flickers, and for a moment, a hooded figure appears, crouching in the pews. No light comes from the depths of its torn hood. Its claws, pale as sun-bleached bones, hold no candle. I shiver as a chill creeps up my neck. The door slams, and I cry out. The figure disappears.</p><p>“I'm afraid you've stumbled into <em>my </em>dream, now.” The voice of Mr Fires purrs behind me. I turn and watch it lock the door. It towers over me in shrouds of deep red velvet, its blazing eyes like hot coals pinning me under their gaze. I feel my pussy grow hot as fear makes my heart thump. Machinery clanks below me.</p><p>“Whatever shall I do with you?” it asks, moving toward me. I stumble backward, clutching my book of dreams. Mr Fires backs me toward the altar, which is now a chair. Leather straps connect to the chair's arms and legs. I find myself sitting in the chair, and Fires chuckles.</p><p>“Do please have a seat,” it says. It fastens the straps around me before I can think to escape. I am trapped, not that I have much of a chance alone against a Master of the Bazaar anyway. “I have been anticipating our meeting.” Fires stoops to look into my face. I see its embered eyes in a leathery, russet face, and what might be a smile. Fangs glisten.</p><p>“Even for a human, you are a strange creature. A delightful plaything, from what I gather.” It rests its gloved hands over both of my arms. “What did my colleague see in you, I wonder? It does make one curious.”</p><p>I glare at Fires. I keep secrets that are not mine to tell. Its red eyes burn brighter.</p><p>“London is <em>my</em> city, little one,” it hisses. “You can't hide anything from me. Not even your dreams.” It reaches down to pick up the book I had dropped when it strapped me into the chair.</p><p>“I am very glad you found your way into my dreams,” it says, clutching the book. “You have seen the Other City, and now you will give those memories to me.” As I watch, it peels off its gloves and clicks its claws together. “I'll simply remove them from your eyes, thus.”</p><p>I take a shaky breath, trying not to imagine its claws near my eyes. They gleam with apocyanic light.</p><p>“I can offer you something in return,” it says, inclining its head slightly.</p><p>I can barely refrain from scoffing. “What would that be?” I ask, clenching my fists against the bindings. I ignore how my pulse thunders.</p><p>The Master runs a claw down my neck. “It is forbidden fruit that you seek.” It shears through my shirt with a flick of its claw. “Forbidden knowledge. I can offer an experience of scientific curiosity, and knowledge of previous cities besides.” It considers my breasts, my soft abdomen. Heat coils in my belly, a snake smelling food.</p><p>Mr Fires leans closer. I struggle, bound, as it examines my body.</p><p>“I'll agree,” I whisper, “if you'll give me what I want.”</p><p>“Do not forget whose dream this is,” it warns, looming even closer. “Your memories, first.” It adjusts the lantern of apocyan to shine into my eyes. Its claws flash with bronze pins and hooks.</p><p>“Hold still and open wide.” It grasps the back of my head to force me to look up, into the light. My vision swims with scarlet and apocyan. Its eyes burn into me. I feel the hooks, the pins, on the surface of my eye. The Other City flashes in my mind.</p><p>I moan and feel a flush of white-hot pleasure run through me. Mr Fires draws away, claws grasping an image peeled from my eyes, and considers me.</p><p>“Unexpected reaction,” it muses. “Though perhaps not, considering my information.” It examines my exposed flesh as it hangs the image up to dry. “This necessitates further study. I had expected simple pleasure would suffice. Do not speak.”</p><p>It sets its claws with their tiny little barbs into my flesh. They jitter like biting insects across my clavicle. I sigh as I feel their sting. Tiny flowers of blood blossom in their path. Down my stomach they crawl. Fires shears through my trousers, revealing the moist skin of my inner thighs.</p><p>“Ah, yes,” it murmurs to itself. “Consistent with the previous reaction.” It pauses its explorations to lift another image from my eyes. I gasp and feel a convulsion of pleasure through my clit. Its glowing eyes take note of my reaction, and then it lowers itself between my thighs. Its claws hook me tightly as I struggle not to cry out. I feel the pins and hooks scratching, tasting, nibbling their way to my centre.</p><p>As I pant under its gaze, it pauses. “This <em>is </em>my dream,” it says, more to itself than to me, as if realizing this fact contains other possibilities. “I control all of it, including you.”</p><p>Sudden sunlight blinds me. When my eyes adjust, I find that I am standing naked upon a stage. The old velvet curtains and rugged wooden boards indicate this is Mrs Plenty's Carnival in the light of the Other City. A crowd stretches as far as I can see. My head and arms are locked into a pillory at the centre of the stage.</p><p>“Ladies, gentlemen, and individuals of indistinct gender,” Mr Fires declares to the crowd, taking a bow. “Let this creature be your entertainment today.” It hooks its claws around my hip and pats my ass like a pig's rump.</p><p>The faces of the crowd come into focus. They are dressed in the styles of London. The people shout at me, raise their fists and jeer.</p><p>“Whore!” they cry. “Scarlet deviless!” A refined older woman holding a parasol spits at me, her face twisted with disgust.</p><p>A man in dirty shirtsleeves rushes the stage, removing his belt as he leaps up beside me. He folds the belt in half and strikes me hard on the ass. I clench my teeth and try not to scream at the sudden bursts of pain.</p><p>“Fires!” I yell, unable to turn my head to look at the Master. But I know it's there, watching. “You've made your point! Stop this!”</p><p>“You don't want it to stop,” it purrs. “I'm afraid my curiosity must be sated.”</p><p>I feel dampness roll down my thighs as the man strikes my ass, and I must admit Fires is right. The man's trousers rustle. And then his cock enters me, and he pulls at my hips to fuck me hard and fast, panting behind me.</p><p>The crowd watches. My eyes flutter closed, and I groan as the man's cock hits a tender spot within me, over and over. Another man, a broad-shouldered giant, leaps atop the stage and pushes the other man aside. His cock is so much thicker when it enters me, I gasp from the girth of it. A person jumps up and slaps my face.</p><p>“Filthy whore!” they screech. “That's my husband!” I still feel the sting of their hand on my face when their husband grunts and thrusts harder, on the verge of orgasm. His vicious thrusts bring me to my peak.</p><p>I look out into the crowd as I come, and see the hooded, stunted figure from the church. Water drips from its rags.</p><p>Its hollow voice slithers into my ears. “Slut of Babylon,” it whispers. My entire body shudders as I squirt. The crowd cheers.</p><p>The man finishes inside me with growled fury, and when he lets go of me, I sink against the pillory, panting breathlessly.</p><p>“That's enough,” Fires says. I am in its chair again inside the church, my thighs still shuddering, soaked with come and my own wetness.</p><p>Tears burn in my eyes. “What's wrong with me?” I whimper. “Why do I enjoy such depraved things?”</p><p>Fires ignores my questions. It wipes my tears with its sleeve. “I need a few more memories. Open your eyes. Wider.” I feel numb as it plucks the final images and hangs them with the others.</p><p>“I have enjoyed our exchange,” it says, examining its reward. “Now go away.” It dismisses me with a wave of its hand.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>When I slowly drift back to the waking world, I remember old cities. A beautiful man looks into my eyes and brushes juice from my chin and my stained robe. He pushes me to the ground, and I open my robe so that he can touch more of me. I peel off his bracelet as his hand goes between my thighs. His teeth press into my bicep.</p><p>I sit up with a start, breathing heavily, and look at my arm. Instead of teeth marks, a bleeding cut marks the skin.</p><p>Something breaks in me. I weep for the loss of my lover and the things that I let Fires take from me, and for the man who is lost forever across the wide, lonely sea.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Five of Lights</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Content Warnings: Self-harm, psychological trauma/mental illness, waxplay/burning.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Your hunger is under the sky</em>
</p><p>
  <em>and it dies of exposure</em>
</p><p>
  <em>covered up to its knees</em>
</p><p>
  <em>scaling the disasters</em>
</p><p>
  <em>that make its madness burn</em>
</p><p>
  <em>enduring the harshness</em>
</p><p>
  <em>of the days</em>
</p><p>
  <em>the tenderness of the flames. </em>
</p><p><em>- </em>From “Este suelo secreto” by Esdras Parra</p><p>
  <em>-</em>
</p><p>In the darkness of my sleeping mind, I see flames. Consuming me with their tempting warmth. Embered eyes watching me. Wings folding around me like smothering caresses of smoke. Strings attached with hooks at my shoulders, and claws flashing as they make me jerk like a marionette. Every pull of the strings tears my flesh red. Does the winged figure hold a candle or a gas-lamp? I can't tell through the smoke.</p><p>Sometimes, the strings pull me into the air, but marsh-mud clings to my waist. The hooks peel through flesh, and I sink deeper under the black, reeking water. At other times, claws rest on my shoulders as I pilot a dirigible, my hands streaming crimson as the hooks force me to push the dirigible down, down, until it blazes through the Bazaar's spires.</p><p>Always, the flames whisper, “Burn,” and I wake with a terrible arousal that I cannot satiate.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>Passing down the street, I realize I am in front of a chandlery. Again. Its siren song calls to me. Invisible strings tug, and I enter. So many beautiful candles, so much delicious wax. Fifteen candles, seven plus seven. Plus one. I can almost taste the wax already.</p><p>“Can I help you, miss?” the shop-keeper asks, eyeing me speculatively. I imagine pushing him aside, lighting the shop so that we both burn together. The scent of seared flesh that yearns for the perfection of wax. Wax can be shaped anew. If my brother's flesh were wax, he need not have died.</p><p>“I will buy your candles,” I say to the shop-keeper instead. “All of them."</p><p>He blinks at me, mouth gaping. But not like the well gapes, no.</p><p>I rifle through the pockets of my coat and hand him the bills. His eyes widen, and he snatches the money.</p><p>“Very well,” he says. “Fifteen candles. All yours.”</p><p>I snatch the first. The wax is cool and smooth in my hand.</p><p>His words linger in my memory: “As I will incorporate you.” He calls me, and I will go. I will go North to light the truth of his Name. To shine for what is forgotten. If I cannot become a candle, I will consume it, incorporate it.</p><p>I eat them, and my mouth tastes of wax. They sit heavy in my stomach. The shop-keeper stares in horror.</p><p>Fifteen candles go down, and I lick my lips. My stomach heaves, and I am sick all over the chandlery floor. I flee.</p><p>And still I long to burn.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>Salvation appears at the Tyrant's Gardens. I hope a brisk walk will dim the voices, even if for a moment. A memory tugs at me as rosebushes swell around me, but the leaves are browning. It is not their season.</p><p>She sits at a bench, hands in raven-white gloves resting on her lap. She looks up as I approach. Her golden eyes regard me like a cat's.</p><p>“It's you, little cricketer,” the Athletic Deviless says. “I wondered if I would see you again.” Memories of that day make pain throb in my skull, but I remember her. Remember tea hot enough to scorch.</p><p>“Come sit,” she says, nodding toward the space on the bench beside her. “I rather enjoyed your latest serial in the Gazette. There is a subtle subversion to its working-class sentiments. And even the Brass Embassy whispers of your love poetry.”</p><p>I thank her as I sit. She smells like roses and honey.</p><p>“'Pain and pleasure.'” I repeat the words she once told me. Dimples crease in her cheeks as she smiles.</p><p>“Oh, the little cricketer grew up!” she exclaims. “You remembered my lesson.”</p><p>She looks into my eyes and takes off her gloves one finger at a time. She brushes a finger against my cheek. It's delightfully warm. I lean into her touch.</p><p>“Come with me,” she whispers, her breath hot against my neck. She presses her lips against the curve of my jaw. I gasp from the heat of her mouth on my skin.</p><p>I take her offered hand, a bee enraptured by a rose's perfume. I ignore the scandalised looks and whispers that follow me into her private Landau. She takes me to her rooms at the Brass Embassy, waving away questions from other devils with a raised hand and secretive smile. She removes her hat and hangs up our coats.</p><p>“It is not only that you seek further instruction that intrigues me, though I do so enjoy the teaching,” she says, pouring herself a glass of brandy and taking a sip. “It is the murmurs of rebellion that peek through your writing. I have kindled its flame within my heart and know its allure.” She unlocks a drawer within her desk and shows me the clippings of reviews of my writing, copies of my novels and poems, playbills from my works of theatre.</p><p>“I didn't know you were such a fan!” I exclaim, flattered that she has enjoyed it so.</p><p>“One poet recognizes another.” She clasps my hand in one of hers and places my other hand on her shoulder. Her free hand coils around my waist and pulls me close. I look up into her glowing eyes as she leads me into a dance.</p><p>“You did teach me that dance is a language,” I remark, resting my head against her shoulder. We waltz to a silent music. My body luxuriates in her heat like a cat stretched out before a hearth.</p><p>“Tell me what you desire,” she says. Her hand traces shapes against my back. My skin tingles. I look up into her golden eyes, half-lidded under long, dark lashes. She holds my hand, and I feel her nails against the burn scar on my palm, exploring the shape of it. A shiver of desire flees up my spine.</p><p>“I want to burn.” The dreams of flames flicker in my mind.</p><p>She laughs and presses me against her, against her red dress. Her white teeth catch my lip, and for a brief moment, her tongue slips into my mouth.</p><p>“Oh,” I whisper, my lips seared as if I drank a mouthful of steaming tea. She hands me a glass of cool water. She watches me cautiously as I drink</p><p>“I want more,” I tell her, tasting my still-tingling lips with my tongue. She laughs again, a tinkle of fine china struck with a spoon.</p><p>“You are my favorite pupil,” she says, brushing my hair away from my face. “I will be gentle so you are not consumed entirely. That would not do.”</p><p>She lays me down on a chaise lounge and unbuttons my clothes. Her fingers and closed lips leave a trail of glowing heat across my skin. Heat gathers even more heavily in my core. She caresses from my belly button to the joining of my thighs.</p><p>“Open,” she says lightly, and I spread my legs, feeling a rush of desire flow through me as I expose myself to her. She teases the mound of my clit, and I gasp from the warmth that spasms through it and my pussy at her touch.</p><p>“Not yet, I think,” she says, drawing her hand away. I breathe heavily as she stands and walks into another room. She returns with a lit candle in a brass holder. Melted wax glistens beneath the flame.</p><p>“This will hurt you less than my own tongue would,” she says. “Let the pain and pleasure wash over you, change you. As we hope to change society with the heat of our convictions.”</p><p>A drop of melted wax lands on my stomach. Its heat lights the black marshes in my mind, drives dark waters away from my shore. Burning is so much better than drowning.</p><p>“Is it?” she wonders. I realize I said that aloud and flush.</p><p>“This feels good,” I say quickly, to cover my embarrassment. I reach for her hand holding the candle, indicate I want to feel it again.</p><p>This time, wax pools onto my chest, leaving a glistening warmth on my breast. My skin reddens. A noise of pain escapes me, but I feel pleasure moisten my pussy. I gasp as her fingers slip inside me, bringing their warmth and pressure. The heat fills me, purifies me. I imagine flames licking my body, consuming me, smoke chasing my sins away.</p><p>The wax cools and hardens. I can almost taste it filling my mouth, coating my insides. So much better than tears. I will become it; I will blaze in memory of him, the betrayed and the forgotten. The false-stars will dim, and the gas-lamps will blacken. Even the sigils of the Bazaar will fade. I will be the only light in the cold dark. And the Masters will fear me.</p><p>“Pain is pleasure,” I whisper to the Deviless. Her tongue finds my clit, and I scream, grasping for her hair, shuddering as powerful waves of orgasm carry me through the pain like wings through the currents between stars. In my mind, a candle lights. A light at the bottom of a well, buried beneath snow.</p><p>The golden eyes of the Deviless shift into his eyes, finally aflame. My body their tinder.</p><p>“Free me,” he tells me. “Remember who I am. Bring my reckoning. Burn for me.” His claws cradle my face, his eyes growing brighter as my pleasure builds. His face is a void studded with obsidian knives and impossibly deep. I fall through it, and I will never stop falling.</p><p>And then the Deviless is scraping the wax off my skin and pressing damp cloth to the throbbing pain between my legs. I tear at her clothes, suck her erect, dark nipples, draw her mouth down to sear my skin again. I gasp and cry out as my skin blisters and sizzles. Her mouth steams against me. I savour the flesh between her legs, and her juices scorch my tongue like boiling water. Her nails dig into me as she comes, her body a writhing viper.</p><p>I am a moth to her candle, to his candle. And it is the sweetest pain, the harshest pleasure. I will light the Neath, like revolution, like a reckoning, and it will burn with me.</p>
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<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Six of Pearls</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Content warning: Gore</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em>Let bodies cling like magnets to my body.</em> <em></em><br/>
 <em>Come quickly to my veins and to my mouth.</em> <em><br/>
</em> <em>Speak through my speech, and through my blood.</em></p><p><em>- </em>Pablo Neruda</p><p>-</p><p>I dream of being consumed. Whether by dark knives or fire, it does not matter. My flesh is his flesh, residing potently in the bellies of those who will never be satisfied. As I will never be satisfied until I find him. Teeth tear into me, a delicious agony, and screams force their way out of my throat.</p><p>"Do you recall how we came to that place?” he whispers. My skin stretches and tightens on my frame. My bones elongate, change proportion. Great vanes of sky-dark night erupt from my shoulder blades. My abdomen is hollow, ravaged, exposed ribs glistening with golden blood.</p><p>His flesh is my flesh; my bones are his bones.</p><p>“And they sang of their lightnings and shapeful disgrace?” A dark shape rises from the sea, its eye fixed upon me, and I welcome its spiny embrace. As I sink through the black water, I ask myself why I have chosen this.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>After a few months of hiding in my flat, the worst of the rumours simmer down to a level that allows me to socialize in public again. I apply cosmetics to hide the darkness under my eyes, the paleness of my face. I slide into the shadows in an all-black suit, the only colour in my wardrobe is a pair of crimson gloves. I shove my hands into my pockets, clutching a crumpled note from months prior inviting me to visit the House of Chimes. They say that eccentrics gather there, under the auspices of Mr Chimes. Perhaps my presence will not be so unwelcome.</p><p>When I arrive inside after announcing my work with the Correspondence, the towering Mr Chimes draws close. I hear the rattle of breath drawn deeply. Its cloaks whisper as it glides before me, patterns swirling in hypnotizing shapes.</p><p>“You,” it growls. I look up into its face swathed in transparent silk. “Mind your manners, little rabbit. I know you.” It leans close, its breath hot on my skin. I do my best to meet its gaze, calm my beating heart. Wandering into the Masters' domain after what I have done is yet another of my foolish decisions.</p><p>Before I can speak, it turns its back on me and whisks away. I breathe a few shaky gulps of air to calm myself. The warm glow of a fireplace draws me, promising safety and comfort. I can hope to sit in obscurity until I've gained enough courage to leave.</p><p>I find that I am not the only one with this plan. A woman sits by the fire, writing in an academic book. She has an oval face, chin-length straight dark hair. Her body is sheathed in silk that is barely opaque. To my horror, she looks up, directly into my eyes. Her expression changes to recognition, but I know I have never seen her before. I would remember.</p><p>“I dreamed your death,” she says. That is the last thing I expect to hear. Then again, considering my intimate relationship with dreams of late, I decide to ask for more information.</p><p>I sit beside her by the fire, and the effect of her eyes upon me is a bit like being an insect pinned under glass.</p><p>“That's one way to introduce yourself,” I tell her, smiling. Her eyes widen.</p><p>“Yes, I imagine it must have alarmed you.” She tells me that she has shared honey-dreams with spiders.</p><p>She leans forward, whispering what she has seen. “We moved through Wolfstack, following you. Stalking you.” Colour rises in her cheeks. “Whichever route you might seek to use to escape, we blocked with silk. We caught you, wrapped you so tightly that you couldn't move.” The image of myself encased in silk rises in my mind, this woman looming over me. “Our fangs pierced you with venom, to immobilize you. And then, your eyes.” The softest touch. I look down, and she has wrapped her silk scarf around my arm. Perhaps the effect would be heightened if it were wrapped around bare skin, not the sleeve of my coat.</p><p>I had destroyed the spider-council in Wolfstack. Perhaps she merely heard rumours? Or perhaps she really did see through their eyes. I'm not sure I care, as the shadows and light dance alluringly over her dress.</p><p>“Would you teach me more?” I ask, returning her scarf. There is a pit in my stomach, fear mixed with a strange kind of desire. I keep looking at her teeth, white and shining like diamonds.</p><p>She says there are rooms in the House of Chimes where she can show me.</p><p>Her silk glides against my bare skin, unbearably soft. I undo the buttons at the back of her dress and help her out of it. These lessons require that we lose our clothing.</p><p>Her teeth catch my lips as she kisses me, and it is a long moment before she pulls away. She nips at the skin where my neck meets my shoulder, and I feel heat flood my belly. Something inside of me stirs, wings unfurling.</p><p>“It's always this part that I dream of,” she confesses. “Consuming you. I admit that I enjoy it.” Her teeth trap my nipple, and a burst of pain makes me moan. I caress her hair as she kneels before me, nibbling my hip, the inside of my thigh. I feel my pussy spasm in pleasure at her proximity.</p><p>“Would you be so kind?” She smiles, dark eyes glowing golden in the light of gas-lamps. She tenderly bends me over the bed. Silk slides over my eyes, blinding me, and then around my hands, cinching them behind my back.</p><p>I feel her teeth on my ass, pressing just hard enough to hurt. I'm bound in the lightest restraints. They're soft but strong. I squirm from the desire to touch her.</p><p>“I've so often thought of how it would feel to catch you in the world outside of dreams,” she says. Her touch turns light, soothes the skin that still burns.</p><p>“It's not an unwelcome prospect,” I reply, my breath unsteady. A small part of my brain, buried underneath the pleasure, whispers that I may be in danger. But that thought only makes the heat rise inside me.</p><p>Her fingers fill me, thrusting and massaging until I'm straining against my bonds, legs shaking. She bites hard into my shoulder. I cry out from the pain, but my pussy quivers from the ecstasy of it. She knows exactly how to curve her fingers, how hard to press. Colours whirl and dance behind the blindfold. When I'm a second away from orgasm, she stops. The withdrawal makes me whimper.</p><p>“This isn't the lesson,” she says, laughing. I squint as she uncovers my eyes. I'd become accustomed to the dark.</p><p>She frees my hands and helps me up, as my legs still shake. Then, carefully, she manoeuvers us onto the bed. She tells me what to do with the scarves, helps me tie them as she lies stretched across me, pressing me into the bed, her soft body settling into mine. We become bound to each other, four limbs becoming eight.</p><p>Eight limbs scuttling across the dank surface of the marsh, chasing green and yellow lights hanging in the fog. And her teeth like the tenderness of insects. They tear into me, voracious, unheeding my screams. He watches me, screams with me, feels my pain as his own. And then I realize I am him, and the priest-kings delight in my body as I struggle against the chains that hold me. Only one of my kind watches. Vake-the-Betrayer, who pressed its body against mine, embraced and loved me, before leading me here. They were only supposed to take a little. It was all I wanted, just a little of those teeth, a tiny sliver of those knives. The Vake's hood is down, and it bares its fangs in pleasure. It is the last thing I see.</p>
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<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Seven of Words</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Full disclosure: This is the chapter I most looked forward to writing. </p><p>Content warning for mind games, psychological sadism, dubious consent, dreams of drowning, gore, and an awful lot of voyeurism. When I think of the Manager, I think of voyeurism. This chapter is my attempt to respect his attachment to his King and balance his two sides of sadism and masochism.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.<br/>
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.<br/>
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day<br/>
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.<br/>
<br/>
I hunger for your sleek laugh,<br/>
your hands the color of a savage harvest,<br/>
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,<br/>
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond. </em>
</p><p>From “Sonnet XI” by Pablo Neruda</p><p>-</p><p>In all of my dreams, I drown. I look into my brother's eyes before the water sucks me beneath the surface. Mud presses in, weighing down my limbs so I cannot break free. And then there are walls of black stone around me, and the water reeks of ammonia and despair. Far above me is a shape, looking down into the water. I reach out to it, force myself upward toward the light and the figure. I finally reach the surface and break through.</p><p>The three tattooed and thin figures wear ancient clothing. Their black knives gleam, and their sharp teeth glisten with saliva that dribbles down their faces. The saliva drips from lethal fangs that lash out of the Vake's face as it lunges for me. In terror, I leap back into the well. The jagged glass tears my skin, and my blood reddens the water as my vision fades.</p><p>“I accept your offering,” the voice whispers. Eaten is there, cradling me to him like an infant. “I will not tell you I will only take a little. I will take everything, but we will have our reckoning.” I surrender, breathing my own blood into my lungs until I know only black.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>I can hardly believe it when I discover descriptions of the three figures from the dream in poetry. I hunt its source to the Royal Bethlehem Hotel. It stands on the outskirts of the city, the Bazaar looming nearby. Its stained-glass windows glow with red and gold opulence. I approach its grounds, my stomach growling, pangs of desire insistent in my pelvis.</p><p>But no, I'm at home, the fire blazing merrily. My cat sleeps at the hearth, its fur pale as snow.</p><p>“Aren't you going to get that?” it asks. I realize someone is knocking at the door.</p><p>“How rude of me!” I tell the cat. It growls, and its fur is black as a void. It resumes eating my dinner. I suppose I'll have to find something else to eat; I know just the thing.</p><p>I am at the door. I greet myself and let myself in. What a pleasant surprise. I am a tall man in a hat, with a silver-tipped cane, beaming brightly. I've seen myself somewhere before, haven't I?</p><p>“What a nasty little dilemma you've gotten yourself into!” His grin drops for a moment. He grasps my chin and lifts my face, his gaze serious. I find I can't look away.</p><p>“Now, I don't normally make courtesy calls. Frankly, this mess is much your own doing. Though you may delight in your own lasciviousness, you neglect your mind.” He takes something from my ear and opens his gloved hand to show me: a brass button. “I expect you'll be nourishing my Garden soon enough. What treasures you'll give me when I come for you.”</p><p>I smile. “Won't you stay for dinner? I'm baking a pie of me.” I remember that I have a gift for him, something in exchange for the button. It's only fair.</p><p>He takes the diamond reverently, examines it for a long moment. When I look down, it has returned to my hand. “Perhaps I see too much of myself in you," he says thoughtfully. "In your heart is a singular love, and you long to hurt them for what they've done to you. The truth of it is deeper than the stones of fallen cities, and farther away than my love.”</p><p>He's gone before I can bring the main course out of the oven.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>I hold a candle that is as green as venom. My wings tear through the sky. The sun is wrong: its cosmogone light does not warm me. I fly over a lighthouse that does not exist. I fly where the earth is dry and hot, the forest thick with cedars. They stretch up into the sky, the air thick with their scent. I land, my bare feet touching a stony path. I have never had wings. I turn to look over my left shoulder. I see his barren skull swathed in rags, his eyes a faint flicker.</p><p>“Greet an old friend,” he says hoarsely. I blink at the dust that blows into my eyes, wrinkle my nose at the stench of rot and well-water.</p><p>My feet move me unbidden down the path between the cedars. The shadows loom, the false-sun a mere glimpse high above. I watch the ground as thorned vines snake along my path. Sometimes, I think I see them move in the corners of my vision. The fallen needles hiss under my feet. After some time, I have to climb over twisting branches that arch their wicked thorns across the overgrown path. Soon, I have to guess at the direction, twisting my body through spaces between thickets of prowling vines. There is no sound in the forest but my own slow progress. I can't stop, even when so many new lacerations join my collection of weeping scars.</p><p>The light brightens: a clearing ahead. I know that is where I must go. I lift my foot in pain, something sharp embedded in the heel. A diamond. The overgrown path is littered with them. Slowly, painfully, I shuffle along. I finally break through to the treeline. For a moment, the false-sun blinds me. And then I realize what I see.</p><p>Two men sit on woven blankets and feed pomegranates to each other. The taller man takes the other's finger, red with fruit, and sucks it. There is movement, clothes are hastily removed. Moans echo in the clearing. The man previously clad in sky-coloured silk is pinned down. He runs his hands down the other's broad back. Then the taller man rolls over, pulling the other on top of him. I watch, feeling like a dirty creature. His lover kisses and bites down the taller man's chest, tangles hands in his long, dark hair. And then the taller man turns his head and looks directly into my eyes. It is the Manager, though his face looks younger than the man I've seen.</p><p>Fury contorts his features as he looks at me. He reaches out his hand toward me, palm up toward the sky and flicks his fingers. I gasp as vines shoot up from the ground around me. They twine around my legs, my waist, my arms, my neck. Thorns dig into my skin, and I whimper in agony. Everywhere, pain blossoms. They rustle over me, squeezing. I can see nothing but thorns. My vision darkens.</p><p>A glow lights the darkness, a candle's flame.</p><p>I hear the Manager's voice in my ear. <em>So he brought you here. Then watch.</em></p><p>Vines disappear back into the earth until my vision clears, but they still restrain me at waist, legs, and arms. They loosen so I can breathe.</p><p>The Manager still looks at me, his expression flat. I don't dare to look away. Despite the discomfort of my position, I long for him, ache in jealous desire. His lover does not seem to notice as vines curl themselves around the Manager's arms, bind them where they lay upon the earth. The thorns cut him too. His lover bends down to lick the Manager's cock, and the Manager finally looks away, closing his eyes as his head arches back. His lover looks up at his face, taking the Manager's full length in his mouth. The Manager's breath quickens, thorns penetrating deeper into his wrists as his body tenses with pleasure.</p><p>He murmurs a command to his lover, who releases his cock with a wet sound. He caresses his own cock, and then spreads the Manager's legs and starts to fuck him. I barely heed my own pain as I watch, my pussy hot with need. Vines twist between my legs and I desperately try to rub myself against them, but I can't move. I'm held tightly.</p><p>The Manager is breathing hard. Sweat shines on their muscular bodies. A ragged growl tears from his mouth, and he looks at me as he comes. The world shifts in a dizzying spiral, colours blending like paint-splatter on canvas.</p><p>“Damn Candles,” says a voice. I feel soft carpet under my cheek. I open my eyes. All is red and gold. A fire glows in the hearth. I'm surprised that I don't feel more pain, but my wrists ache. The Manager stands over me, watching me as I awake. He kneels and helps me sit up.</p><p>“I'm furious with you,” he says, “but I'm more angry with that wretched spectre who brought you to my dream. Come. We'll have you cleaned up in no time at all.” He takes me to the room's bath. The tub is filled with sweet-scented water. His touch is soft as he helps me out of my torn and bloody clothes. He's fully clothed as if he were not just naked on a forest floor with his lover. His eyes flicker across my nude body, taking in the scratches and blood. His eyes widen and he steps closer, gaze locked on my chest. I stumble back against the tub, and he catches me, holding me until I'm steady again.</p><p>His fingers trace the weeping scar on my chest, then another. The wounds glisten with red, wet blood. They are months old by now, but they stain his fingers red.</p><p>“They don't cause me pain any longer,” I tell him.</p><p>He removes his hat, his coat with their brass buttons, his ascot and waistcoat. He unbuttons his shirt while I watch and blush. A red line extends from the middle of his chest to his belly button. As I look, blood seeps from the wound.</p><p>“Love is a cruel master,” he says. He grins. “I'd give it all if he would let me be with him, but I know he'll never have me. So I collect pretty treasures, repent with my pain.” He turns my hand palm up and drops something into it. Another brass button.</p><p>He gestures toward the claw-footed tub. “Now, in with you!” He helps me into the water, and I sink down to my head, sighing as I feel its warmth engulf me. So much better than marsh-water, than a well. The Manager helps me clean the blood from my wounds. Despite my fear of him and the knowledge that I may be one of his pretty treasures soon, raving about the Name, his tenderness calms me. I close my eyes and float away.</p><p>Time is uncertain in that red and gold room. My body heals, but my sleep is wracked with voices calling me. A lizard scuttles across my face.</p><p>The door creaks open in the night, and there is a pressure on the bed. I feel his hand on my shoulder.</p><p>“A price must be paid, I'm afraid,” he says softly. “You were very bad. There are consequences for trespassing.”</p><p>I'm in a hallway that stretches on forever. I look around, disoriented. The wallpaper and carpet look like those in the Hotel. But something isn't right. Something is coming. I hear its rattling breath, its scratches on the wall like long, sharp claws. Its steps grow quicker. The impact sounds like it comes from many more legs than two.</p><p>I run for what feels like days. A wall looms ahead of me, a dead end. I turn around, see a door and dash through it. Another hallway. The wall behind me is bare, the door gone. I run down this hallway, throw myself through a second door into yet another hallway. It narrows, pressing in around me until I can hear my heartbeat echoing against the walls. I hear the creature's growls, ever closer. A scarlet lizard curls around a gas-lamp, flicking its tongue at me.</p><p>I run past a painting of the Manager, his cheerful smile following me. His face appears in mirrors that line the walls, following my path.</p><p>I almost collide with another dead end. Scraping steps skitter behind me, and the gas-lamps blow out, one by one. I scream as darkness swallows me. Dark water that chokes my lungs. The face in the mirror watches me.</p><p>I lash out, sheets twisted around me, until hands catch my arms and hold me still. I'm breathing fast as I realize I'm back in my room. The Manager kneels before me, holding me down so I don't strike him. I want to slap him, but I'm also relieved he's here. I start to sob and clutch at his coat when he lets go of my wrists. His dark eyes smoulder with an emotion I know too well.</p><p>“There, there,” he says, hands rubbing my back. He sighs. “Forgive me, my love.”</p><p>He tilts my chin up and presses his lips hungrily to mine. He grunts angrily. I throw my hands around his neck, but he clutches them and pins me down against the floor. I shiver as he presses himself between my spread-open legs, his cock hard beneath his trousers.</p><p>“Don't move,” he orders. He loosens his belt, sheds his clothes like old sins. “I want to look into your eyes.” He's so thick when he thrusts inside me that my eyes water. He takes me like a storm upon the sea, fucking me with hard, fast strokes. He lifts my legs over his shoulders, roughly grabbing my ass so he can thrust deeper. His hand holds the back of my neck, squeezing just enough that my head can't move.</p><p>I moan from the force and the pain as he pulls my hips up against him, moving with the pent-up force of long-term celibacy and rage at my intrusion into his private dream.</p><p>He growls like a wounded beast as he looks into my eyes, and I see tears on his cheeks. With a final thrust, he comes, and collapses onto me. I hold him against me and try not to hear his sobs.</p><p>“I'm getting old,” he finally mutters. He passes a shaky hand over his face when he disentangles himself from me. His hands are wrinkled, ancient, his face exhausted. I took something from him too.</p><p>“Go to sleep. I promise you'll sleep as soundly as the dead.” He's gone before I can say anything. What else can I do but sleep?</p><p>For once, I do not dream.</p>
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<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Knave of Regrets</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Content warning: This is a more personal chapter and also includes church sex. The religious content is probably controversial.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Our fluxed<br/>lives fall into emptiness, into echo. Cut<br/>enough to spread the skylit stars<br/>of worship (the tender stigmata of</em>
</p><p>
  <em>lives). Fall into emptiness, into echo. Cut-<br/>stains on our skin—let this be our form<br/>of worship, the tender stigmata of<br/>regret.</em>
</p><p>- From “Elegy Pantoum” by Dean Rader</p><p>-</p><p>I wake in my lodgings, the world of red and gold a faint memory, like a fever dream. In the coming days I see a glimpse of a familiar stovepipe hat, the gleam of brass buttons in the gas-light of the street. The presence does not cause me fear, for I have seen the man behind the cheerful smile, and I know his lonely heart beats like mine. My dreams are peaceful, dreamless, and I feel well-rested for the first time in months. Despite my gratefulness, I feel a sense of loss; no voice claims me in the night, and if the merry gentleman watches over my sleep, he is gone before I wake.</p><p>The mental clarity provides me the ability to think on what I have done. The endless sensations and distractions of my assignations did not allow me to truly reconcile with my betrayal of the jewel thief. Despite the company of warm bodies, the pleasure, I am alone. The presence in my dreams provided me the tinder, but I lit myself on fire when I chose to pursue its hunger, and I burned my relationship with the jewel thief to ashes. I stabbed his heart, and in doing so, wounded my own.</p><p>It is difficult to be alone with myself. The Hallowmas season arrives, and when I encounter a stall selling masks, one design in particular calls to me: the Smiling Devil. I dress in a black velvet gown, the mask upon my face, and find myself in St Dunstan's. The ancient sacristy is bedecked with Elder Continent banners. I smell frankincense and rose, and the music is energetic, flamboyant. Candlelight casts the long shadows of the dancers upon the walls.</p><p>I dance with devils, drink spiced wine, and try to forget everything that haunts me.</p><p>People whisper of the confessional, how they feel purified after partaking of its services. I do not consider myself a religious person; God is as distant to me as a fairy tale. But the knots that twist my stomach compel me to enter, to speak my truth so it no longer strangles me.</p><p>The ancient wood is engraved with monsters and saints, bound in ivy. I think of the thorns that wrapped around me in Parabola, and swallow my nerves as I kneel inside.</p><p>I hear faint movements on the other side of the thin grate. I am sheltered from view by the divider, but my heart pounds. I feel dissected and naked in this house of God, the weight of judgment pressing down upon me as I kneel.</p><p>“Welcome to my house tonight,” the voice, deep and smooth, says softly from the other side. “Tell me your story. Tell me of love and disloyalty.”</p><p>Despite my anonymity, I hesitate. It feels like a betrayal of the creature I call Mr Eaten. But I know that I must do this to lighten the load upon me, for it is all too much sometimes.</p><p>So I tell the mysterious masked Duke my story: how I lacked something in my relationship with the jewel thief, how after I discovered the Correspondence Stone I began dreaming of that hollow voice, feeling the insatiable hunger that first led me to the Parlour of Virtue. The way that I hardly recognize the paranoid, sleep-deprived, hedonistic person that I have become. My poems have become dark, obsessed with imagery of knives and wells and chains.</p><p>In the end, the Duke emerges from his side of the confessional. The bright gold devil's mask obscures his features, but he is tall and slim in white gloves and a suit in the style of Hell's tailors. He reveals that he has written my confession as he pins it to a board.</p><p>“There is no expiation without shame,” he says. “Remember the words of our Father, and take comfort: 'Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.' We who sin will walk again in His light.”</p><p>I do not know if I can feel God's light, or if I really believe that it can reach anyone here, so close to Hell and so far from the sun. I remember the sickly green glow in the marshes of my dreams, the hovering light that I chased through deep waters until I was submerged in darkness.</p><p>“I don't think God's light shines for me, my lord,” I tell the Duke, bowing my head. “I'm not sure that I deserve forgiveness.”</p><p>The Duke looks at me and puts a hand on my shoulder, leaning close. “The question you should be asking is whether you can forgive yourself,” he says. “I have met few in all my years who are truly irredeemable. It is our choices that matter: to change and begin anew. That is how we may repent and find peace.”</p><p>The music picks up, all brassy indiscretion. Even now, something awakens deep inside me. It burbles up like repressed laughter, as I take the Duke's hand and lead him to the dance floor.</p><p>“Come then, I want to forget about my sins for this song, at least!” The Duke, initially pulled helplessly onto the dance floor, takes the lead. </p><p>“I'm not familiar with this dance,” I murmur in his ear as the music eases into a slower section. “Where did you learn it?”</p><p>He chuckles, and his hand holding mine is warm. “I fear I must keep that secret, for the sake of my reputation. It will be called the Foxtrot.”</p><p>“Will be?” I ask, but the music's pace picks up, and he pulls me close again. I feel his heat and strength as he moves with me across the dance floor, and I do my best to keep up.</p><p>“You're a quick learner,” he comments, as I follow the pattern and no longer step on his feet. I feel the words rumbling in his chest.</p><p>“Dance isn't the only thing I pick up quickly,” I say with a smile in my voice, looking up at his masked face. The words come out before I realize what I am saying, and I blush. I've brazenly flirted with this man after just confessing my insanity and infidelity to him.</p><p>“Forgive me, my lord,” I whisper, removing my hands from his. I flee before he can say a word. As I leave the church, I imagine God's judging gaze upon me, branding me as a sinner.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>A few days later, I receive a request to meet the Duke at St Dunstan's. I feel I owe him for listening to my confession, and so I go, despite my shaking hands and hot face. The church is dark, lit only by the gas-light that shines weakly through the stained glass windows. As I walk through the pews, I see the slim figure of the Duke standing before the altar. He wears a cassock and removes his mask as I reach him.</p><p>“I wasn't sure if you would come,” he says, silhouetted against the light from outside. “It took some investigation to identify you from the guest list. It's nice to see your face.” He places the mask upon the altar, sighing. “Until next year, perhaps.” He turns to me, and I find myself stepping forward until I can make out the planes of his handsome face.</p><p>“You have me at a disadvantage,” I tell him.</p><p>He smiles. “I do try to avoid the public eye. I am the Bishop of St Fiacre's.” At the startled look on my face, he adds, “You were bold, that night. And better yet, you were interesting. I have known many sinners, and count myself among their number, but you have intrigued me most of all.”</p><p>“But, but if I knew who you were,” I stammer, thinking of how he had held me close as he danced with me, how I had flirted with him. “Forgive me, but hosting an event like that, for a man of the cloth, is quite peculiar!”</p><p>He nods. “Indeed. But to know yourself, you must know what you fear: your dark side.” I think of what I have done, the person I have become.</p><p>The Bishop presses a card into my hand. “I have a select group of friends who gather at the cathedral. I hope you will consider joining. I think it will help you, Miss Blackmore.”</p><p>“Thank you, your Grace,” I say, “but I'm not sure you would want me. I have no great connection to God or the church, and if God does exist, he must not be pleased with me, as you're aware.” I start to hand the card back to him, but he stops me with a gesture.</p><p>“No, I would very much appreciate your presence. Please consider it.” He steps closer and places a hand upon my arm. “If you are uncomfortable with the presence of others, you can speak with me about whatever is on your mind, alone.” I nod, and he walks me out of the church.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>I do go to St Fiacre's within a fortnight, and I bring a donation of candles and money. I must do something to erase the damage I have caused and the pain I have brought to the people in my life.</p><p>The Bishop greets me warmly, though I notice that there is a stiffness of expression about his eyes. It is difficult to reconcile the man in the infernal suit at Hallowmas, the way he moved me confidently through a dance I had never encountered, with the man in the cassock who leads the greatest church in London. That pressure deep inside smells the fresh blood of attraction and surfaces from its slumber, like a leviathan from the sea.</p><p>“I can help you,” he says, watching how I pace with guilt and shame in the house of God, “if you will allow it of me.”</p><p>He looks at me then, not as a religious servant looks at a member of his congregation, nor as a judge looks at a sinner, but as one looks at that which is desired.</p><p>“I am a Bishop,” he says softly, taking my hand, “but I am also a man.”</p><p>His quarters are surprisingly modest. Bookshelves cover multiple walls, and there is a sturdy writing desk covered in papers and religious texts of, I notice, not just Christian faiths.</p><p>“Please relax,” he says, and I sense only kindness in his expression. I realise how tensely I hold my shoulders, and let out a shaky breath.</p><p>“Will you be my absolution?” I ask, trying to find my courage.</p><p>His fingers trace my face, looking intently into my eyes. “You have that power, Miss Blackmore, not I. But perhaps together we can find a moment of peace.”</p><p>His lips are rougher than I expect, though he is out of practice. His touch hovers against my skin as we remove our clothes, as if holding back.</p><p>“I am not made of glass, Bishop,” I tell him, guiding his hands to rest more firmly against me.</p><p>“I often wonder, if a glass breaks, does it remain a glass?” he whispers against my ear. “Or does it become something else? Is it destroyed?”</p><p>I smirk and scrape my teeth against his earlobe, nip his neck. “I do not break easily.”</p><p>He shudders and pulls away from me, his penis erect against his lean stomach. He turns away, and for a moment I fear our encounter is at its end, but he rummages through his desk drawer and removes a length of rope. When he returns to me, he clutches my hair and slides his tongue greedily into my mouth. It is as if a wellspring erupts upon the removal of a stone that stoppers it.</p><p>The Bishop breaks the kiss, and there is a darkness in his eyes, as if another creature looks out from behind them. “Will you give me the gift of your surrender?” he asks. He waits for my consent, unmoving.</p><p>“Yes.” A warm flush spreads throughout my entire body as I see the genuine smile light his face, replaced by a devious smirk.</p><p>“Kneel,” he says. I do as I'm told, and he places his hand upon my head, as if in baptism. He doesn't need to tell me what he wants. I take his cock into my mouth, feeling the hot thrill inside me at his groan of approval. His hand gently holds my head in place as he fucks my mouth. I run my tongue along the head of his cock, and suck to elicit a muttered curse. Even a Bishop will blaspheme when his cock is sucked. I enjoy the sounds that he makes, and his cock hardens and twitches. His breath quickens, until eventually he holds me still and removes himself.</p><p>“Thank you,” he says, panting. “Now get on the bed. Lie on your stomach.” He speaks softly, gently, but I obey the unmistakable command. My stomach growls, and I feel myself become more aroused as he positions me how he likes. He tells me to bend my knees, and I wait patiently as he ties the rope around my ankles. The sensation of the rope tightening against my skin excites me. He pulls my arms back and ties my wrists to my legs, until I am restrained in a hogtied position.</p><p>“You're beautiful,” he says. He caresses my ass, traces the places where the rope holds me.</p><p>He admires his work as an artist would admire a painting. I feel myself grow wet with anticipation for him and what he will do next. What I do not expect is that he ties a scrap of cloth around my eyes, blinding me.</p><p>“See no evil,” he says, pressing his lips down my neck, the curve of my shoulder. I am throbbing with the thought of being fucked, aching for the feel of him.</p><p>And yet, nothing. I lay there, listening. I know he's there. My limbs begin to ache. I start to protest, and a ball of cloth is placed into my mouth. All I can do is growl at him for being a tease.</p><p>“Every day, I wear the mask,” he says. “Sometimes it gets to be too much. To never allow myself to be seen. I know you feel the same. It is what draws me to you.”</p><p>He enters me then, and I find myself drifting in the bliss of being powerless and submitting to his will. He fucks me slowly and with control, only to lose himself momentarily and thrust hard and fast for several strokes. My worries and fears, my guilt and shame, disappear as I immerse myself in the present moment. Perhaps I am damned; for now, this is enough.</p><p>I'm wet and sensitive for him, and he's so hard. He loses his reserve entirely as he fucks me. I feel the pressure build as his unbearably hard cock hits me just right, and I moan as I soak the sheets with my squirting juices. My orgasm clenching around him causes him to climax as well, and he takes a long breath, removing himself from me.</p><p>He unties my limbs with tender hands and removes my blindfold.</p><p>The wrinkles around his eyes seem different, somehow, and he checks my skin, asks how my arms and legs feel. I'm too tired and worn out to move. He lies beside me, spent and satisfied.</p><p>“I won't forget what you've done for me,” he says, kissing me.</p><p>As I drift to sleep with his arms around me, I realise that his mouth tastes of wax.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Queen of Inks</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Content Warnings: Gore, sexualized rape. I'm sorry, my kinks are fucked up, especially where certain characters are concerned.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>What you seek is seeking you.</em>
</p><p><em>- </em>Rumi</p><p>-</p><p>My brother returns to my dreams, his dark eyes wide and glassy in his blood-stained, young face. His corpse croaks out a whisper, “Find him, Nell.” I cradle his head in my lap, and his blood soaks my hands as I cry his name.</p><p>I sit up in bed, chest heaving and nightclothes sticking to my feverish skin.</p><p>For too long, I have put off my search for his killer. I have distracted myself from this pain, sought relief for the gnawing void inside me. The voice of the marsh is silent, and my head is clear. Only my brother haunts my sleep. I could not forgive myself if I ignore his call.</p><p>My search takes me through other lands, and at last into Parabola itself. I enter through a mirror, cosmogone glasses shielding me from the false-sun's light. Whispers wind around me, rustling my hair, and my stomach growls. A distant, half-sleeping part of my mind remembers: this is his realm.</p><p>But this is not his dream. It is the dream of one who only yearned for his power, but I still find his reflection. Through bones stripped bare with the freezing wind, across the snow, I find him. His voice is as familiar to me as a lover's, and I shiver before the shadowed figure, the smallest of the company. His voice resonates with sovereignty as he commands the wretched mirror-eyed creature to help me.</p><p>My heart drops as I realize this reflection does not recognize me, but I still struggle to take my gaze away and continue my search.</p><p>I destroy the creature once called Mirrors, and in the end I destroy Cups as well. I watch its ruined face as I pour the antidote onto the floor, away from its grasp, and my heart feels nothing.</p><p>An eye for an eye. I take its cloak and escape the Bazaar. Later, in my room, I stare at my face and red clouds my vision. The image of maggots crawling through Cups' empty eye socket haunts my mind. Sigils of mourning memorialise my brother on the Bazaar's spires. He will never be forgotten as long as the Bazaar exists.</p><p>Soon after, I wake to find a brass button tied around my neck with black string. My fingers clutch a note.</p><p>
  <em>She smells the blood on your hands, and she will come for you.</em>
</p><p>A warning.</p><p>I see flashes of scarlet in mirrors where my reflection should be. Lips a deeper red than my own, triumphant.</p><p>I dream of a mirror, and on the clouded surface a message is written: <em>I shall be expecting you at my Court. Dress for the occasion.</em></p><p> </p><p>
  <em>-</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Crimson stars adorn her crown of maddening gold, and her eyes wear the black of the obsidian blade. The air warps with her slightest movement like the sky before thunder. Red-gloved hands rest upon her lap. I wince at the terrible perfection of her beauty and feel seized with a desire I have never known before. Her gaze strips me bare. I feel naked despite my clothes.</p><p>She needs not speak. My most exquisite gown creases as I start to kneel before the Queen. I move to obey before I even become conscious of the choice.</p><p>“No. Closer, my lamb.” She gestures to the dais upon which her throne sits. My head bows as I sink to the ground before her. She is the size of a human woman and yet impossibly tall, her crown's rubies twinkling as hungry stars.</p><p>Her hand lifts my chin, thumb brushing my cheek in a fond gesture. She smiles.</p><p>“What tribute do you bring to your Queen?” she asks.</p><p>There can be no question. “Anything,” I respond.</p><p>She leans back in her throne, and as I watch, she lifts the voluminous fabrics of her full red skirt, teasing me with a smirk.</p><p>I bow, placing a kiss on her slipper. Arousal slithers up my spine. I kiss up the smooth, deep brown skin of her bare leg. A gentle hand rests upon my head, encouraging.</p><p>She spreads her thighs, and I blush as she bears her pubic mound to all within her Court, without shame.</p><p>“Take it,” the Queen whispers, caressing my hair. I reach my tongue between her folds and inhale her scent. I run my tongue against her clit and her hand presses harder. It holds me in place; I could no sooner resist it than resist the Boatman's siren song.</p><p>When I slip my tongue inside of her, I taste blood. She moans as I struggle not to choke and heave under her firm grasp. Blood fills my mouth, my nose. Intoxicating and repulsive. But greedily I suck her harder, hoping to coax a tighter grip, wanting to hear her climax. She does not cry out, does not speak. Only the faintest quiver of muscles in her thighs around my head tell me that she feels this.</p><p>She inhales sharply, and I feel a sudden burst of pain in my chest. The Queen buries her fingers in my skin, twisting. I scream in agony against her skin as they pierce into me, five impossibly sharp daggers. Her thighs clench me harder as she holds me firm to her clit, rending the air with her orgasm. At its peak, she pulls my heart from my shattered ribs, and my vision blurs red and black.</p><p>It is done. She places my heart in my helpless, limp hands and pulls me by my hair to her face, where she kisses me, tongue exploring my mouth, rich and red with her blood. The kiss drains the breath from my lungs and the strength from my struggling limbs. The wound aches where I am now empty.</p><p>When she finally releases me, I sink to the ground and clutch my faintly throbbing heart to my chest.</p><p>“You please me,” the Queen says. “Such a sweet and compliant pet.” My bones crack and contort as they nestle into place again. The skin knits itself closed, covering the gaping wound and leaving only a red mark on healed skin: her brand.</p><p>My heart dissolves into both of my hands, leaving them sticky with blood.</p><p>“One for each life you took to pay a debt,” the Queen says, her voice rich as velvet and betrayals. “I smelled you. I longed for you.”</p><p>Her eyes flash green.</p><p>I blink.</p><p>“No,” I breathe.</p><p>Bones shift and elongate. Skin stretches, snaps, bulges, and bursts with clumps of dark, thick hair. She smirks, lounges languidly as she remakes herself. She stretches above the top of her throne until it is tossed away like an unbalanced chair.</p><p>Her nose elongates into a snout; teeth grow and serrate and sharpen. Talons and wings shred the gloves and dress into so many glorious rags.</p><p>“Pretty toy,” Veils screeches as it leers at me, rid of its guise. “So eager to please," it taunts. "I know what you seek. Your blood sings. You'll never know him like I did." </p><p>I fall back, stunned, hardly daring to breathe as it crouches, wings spread over me like a storm cloud. They wrap around me until the blackness between stars consumes me.</p><p>I am no longer in the Queen's realm. I am no longer in Parabola.</p><p>I float in a black void. Utterly still. Silent. I cannot hear myself breathe. Ice creeps into my mouth and my lungs, clawing inside me and stealing all heat.</p><p>Time does not exist. An eternity passes, and my mind cracks with the emptiness.</p><p>A flicker.</p><p><em>We must not look back, </em>Eaten's voice rises out of the void. A tiny, glowing light appears before my face. It pulses with a faint green glow. I reach out and touch it.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>The winds fill our vanes with the essence of stars. Here where the light is so far away and the ice of the between places frosts our fur, we soar and we hunt. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Ecstasy. That is how it feels to dive, to push my wings to the point beyond exhaustion, knowing it will never be enough to outrun my hunter.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>A burst of pain – an impact of claws that scrape and tear and caress at once. We whirl and tilt and resist like eternally rotating bodies, ever drawn to each other's gravity. Its green eyes flash with feral need, the pleasure of the pursuit, the instinct to subjugate its prey. Blood leaks golden across my body, filling me with its potent heat. I turn to it, reach out with my wounded limbs and wrap my arms around its larger torso.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It only allows this tenderness because I allow its cruelty. It taunts me all the same, reminding me of my stature. I know that it envies my blood, yearns for it. It admires the wounds it's made anew on this hunt. I inspect the burns I scorched into its fur, the gouges where my claws tore at its flesh. It pushes me away, shamed by my concern.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>PREY WHO THROWS HIMSELF WILLINGLY UPON TEETH, it says, lighting the dark with its words. This name it has bestowed upon me. I smile. It will not let me close yet, but someday I will show it how it feels to be loved.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>An impossible weight, suffocating me into a gasping awareness. Tears wet my cheeks as I open my eyes, panicking.</p><p>Serrated teeth flash. “Little rabbit wakes. Did you sweetly dream?” Veils mocks.</p><p>It laughs, a horrible sound that splits my skull with pain. “This -” it rips my dress with its teeth “-a travesty. Criminal.” Expensive silk shreds to nothing. It throws the scraps wildly on the ground around us like pieces of garbage. Before long, I lie naked but for the brass button tied to my neck.</p><p>Veils leans close and sniffs. Its nostrils flare. “Tempting,” it whispers. “Just a taste. Delicious. Sandalwood. Like <em>him.</em>” Its talons pin my arms to the ground as it spreads itself over me. There is no need to hold my fragile human body down, but it does anyway. I feel its wet, hot, oozing tongue reach out beyond those jaws and savour my flesh.</p><p>I clench down on a groan of disgust as it explores my body. Its long tongue spreads like a prehensile tentacle, wrapping around my neck. I feel my pulse beat frantically against its pressure.</p><p>“So fragile,” it taunts. “I feel you.” Its tongue wraps more tightly and I wheeze. My eyes blur, and my mind goes blank with fear.</p><p>It loosens its tongue and chuckles. Its stinking breath heats my skin. “I feel your fear. And your pleasure. Wanting me.”</p><p>I realize that it is not wrong. I respond to the intrusion of its explorations with disgust but, equally, excitement. Heat builds in my pussy, and I feel its hot twinges radiate through my center. Betrayal. Shame twists my stomach. I know the poison of that embrace.</p><p>“I am no mere hawk, little rabbit.”</p><p>Suddenly, it releases me.</p><p>“Run, plaything!”</p><p>I scamper onto my feet and do as I am told. The Queen's Court has become a grassland, dry and hot with a blazing false-sun.</p><p>The stones cut my feet, and sharp grass tears my calves, leaving drops of bright blood on the ground. My pulse thunders in my ears: panic and anticipation. Despite my fear, I long to be caught.</p><p>A screeching cry echoes off the distant canyons. I dive to the ground and crawl low, skinning my knees on gravel and dust.</p><p>Wings beat over my head.</p><p>Panic. No shelter.</p><p>Suddenly, pain in my shoulder. Veils swoops past, laughing as it leaves long red scratches on my skin. I run, stumbling, crashing through thorny vines that needle my flesh.</p><p>A forest appears beyond a hill. I dart under the trees and crawl again, looking up into the sky. I crawl until I collapse from exhaustion. The forest is silent but for the leaves whispering in the breeze.</p><p>But a second too late I feel the breath whisper against my skin.</p><p>“Got you.”</p><p>Fear and arousal spread through my body. Resistance would achieve nothing. I surrender.</p><p>To Veils' tongue around my throat, squeezing my vision blurry. To its cock thrusting deep until I am sore and bleeding, claws gouging my back. To its teeth tearing into my left thigh as it ejaculates. I come in a breathless rush through my tears of pain.</p><p>And as I lose consciousness, soaking the ground with crimson wounds, the brass button tied to my neck reflects Veils' satisfied grin.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>This chapter was inspired by sphilia's Shed Your Skin.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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